FRANTIC BUYING

Evening Star, Issue 25776, 26 April 1946, Page 7

FRANTIC BUYING

SOUTH AFRICAN GOLD STRIKE WILD RUSH FOR SHARES (Rec. 11 a.m.) LONDON, April 24. The great " gold rush" to-day surged forward with new impetus and gave the London Stock < Exchange dealers one of the most hectic days in history, says the ' Daily Mail.' So great was the demand for telephone calls to Johannesburg, costing £1 a minute, that the General Post Office was swamped, and refused any more bookings until to-morrow. Brokers found the cables too slow, with prices changing (from minute to minute.. Fortunes could be made by buying by telephone in Johannesburg and reselling an hour later in London. The Johannesburg Stock Exchange experienced its maddest day, the frenzied boom scenes outdoing even those in London. Out in Odendaals Rust all was quiet. Many people there wish that the gold had never been-found. They are real villagers, and believe that "gold brings trouble, brings city traders, money hunger, and dishonesty. We do not want it." Trial rigs, however, are already, appeariug on the veldt. Business on the Stock Exchange is so heavy that it is jamming the city's telephone exchange and streets within a mile of the Exchange, says a Johannesburg message. Dealers who are finding it impossible to raise numbers on the telepnorie are driving' to the Exchange, where the streets are so congested that they have to walk the last mile. The results of new boreholes driven by the Development Investment Corporation have been an anti-climax to a week's gold fever. The Price Corporation's shares to-day dropped rapidly to 945. Yesterday's findings compared unfavourably with the richness of the first strike. Sir Ernest Oppenheimer told the Investment Trust annual meeting that it was now certain that there was a continuous gold-bearing area running north and south through Odenaals Rust, in which probably 10 or 11 large mines would be established.